Re: [lojban] semantic parser - tersmu-0.1rc1

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> * Sunday, 2011-12-04 at 10:13 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
>
>> There are two separate issues to consider: (1) Where is the binding
>> quantifier when an expression contains apparently unbound variables?
>> (2) What is the scope of an explicit quantifier which is not presented
>> in prenex form?
>>
>> I don't think there's more than one reasonable answer to (2). Saying
>> that "no da blabi .i je no de xekri" means something different from
>> "ge no da zo'u da blabi gi no de zo'u de xekri" seems just
>> unreasonable. No quote from CLL can make it reasonable. The fact that
>> you need to use tu'e-tu'u if you want to move "no da" to a prenex
>> while maintaining the non-prenex ijek connective form is just
>> incidental.
>
> So you really consider ijeks as just a different notation for giheks?

A different notation for bridi geks, yes. All logical connectives are
just more or less condensed variants of bridi geks.

> So e.g. you'd have {ro da muvdu .i na ja ko celgunta da}
> mean "if everything moves, shoot something" rather than "if anything
> moves, shoot it"?

Yes. For the other meaning we have: "ro da zo'u ga nai da muvdu gi ko
celgunta da". Or, if you want a more condensed version: "ro da muvdu
na gi'a se celgunta ko".

>> Question (1) may admit more than one reasonable answer. The simplest
>> answer seems to be that the elided "su'o" is right in front of the
>> first instance of the apparently unbound variable, with scope as in
>> (2), and any instance outside that scope will require new binding.
>> Another perhaps reasonable answer might be that the elided "su'o" has
>> scope wide enough to capture as many instances of  the apparently
>> unbound variable as possible. I don't find it so reasonable that there
>> be no possible place to make "su'o" explicit in the expression as
>> presented.
>
> I can see that. To be clear (because given your example at the top, I'm
> not sure we already have clarity), I'm effectively disputing this only
> in very rare edge cases - those of the form {[PA] da .A ko'a da}, and
> those of the form {GA [PA] da broda gi brode vau da}. I doubt the
> designers had these cases in mind.
>
> In both cases, the issue is that the "simplest answer" you mention
> doesn't give an answer - I would replace the indicated "[PA]" with
> {su'o} if it's empty, but then there's no answer to the question of
> whether the second {da} is in the scope of the first. So should it also
> get a {su'o} and hence be rebound on both arms of the connective?

Of course.

> Or
> only on one? I don't see that there's an obviously-correct answer.

If you have two things being connected, each of the things is under
the scope of the connective. I see no good reason for the semantics to
go against the syntax here.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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